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there had been completed around 1230 and he was obviously impressed enough to bring back
workmen and marble at his own expense to Westminster. The master was probably Petrus
Oderisius who created Pope Clement IV's tomb in Santa Maria in Gradi.
Having established this, he goes on to support Christopher Norton's ideas of the tradition of
using opus sectile work for shrines and then gives a brief discussion of the geometry.
When I met him after the conference and asked him about the geometry of the pavement he
was shy of discussing it, perhaps seeing me as the type of "sacred geometer" that gives the
study of such a geometry a bad name. I still do not see that there has been enough study of the
geometric detail of the Great Pavement and the quincunx design on and around Edward the
Confessor's tomb related to the wider use of such designs in Cosmati work.
The middle part of his paper is concerned with the identification of the materials. It is set in
Purbeck marble as described in Christopher Norton's paper. There are various other stones
brought from Italy. Identification of many of the materials has been helped by a set of marble
samples collected by the Roman lawyer Faustino Corsi that he gathered and catalogued from
the decorative marbles in Rome in 1825. Corsi's collection of 1000 samples is now in the Uni-
versity Museum in Oxford.
As well as cut stone there are smaller amounts of opaque and transparent glasses. The
analysis of the opaque ones shows the closest match (with a high sodium and low potassium
content) is found to be with enamels at Limoges. The transparent ones (with high potassium
and low sodium) are typical of northwestern Europe. This again shows the wide international
communication taking place at this time.
The Great Pavement is unique in having an inscription. Richard Foster only goes into this
briefly since his book on the pavement [1991] details it at length. This is also the best place to
go for the cosmological significance of the pavement as whole. He is concerned here with the
chemical analysis of the remaining letters and shows that they were probably cast at the same
Royal Foundry that cast steelyard weights, the standards issued to merchants by the crown.
The latter part of the paper is a chronology of the various restorations it has undergone in
past 750 years. It is remarkable that so much has survived. (The next paper, by Nicholas Dur-
nan brings this up to date.) There are over 50 notes and references.
THE CONDITION AND CONSERVATION OF THE COSMATI
PAVEMENTS AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY
In 1997–98 Nicholas Durnan directed a survey, practical trials and remedial work on the
pavements. The Great Pavement was particularly difficult to assess since you need to look
down from the triforium to see it as a whole but down on your knees to get close enough to ap-
preciate the intricate detail and workmanship.
In the Great Pavement, the team was able to identify different geological material. Some
dating from around 1268 as described by Richard Foster. Another two groups were from 1660 –
62 repairs and some late seventeenth/early eighteenth century ones and then the 1867–68 works
by Gilbert Scott, which could be differentiated by mechanical cutting. Mortar varies from origi-
nal hard opus signinum (with Roman Brick dust) with later soft lime motor and Scott's Portland
cement.
For Edward the Confessor's shrine area, much 1268 material is present with later repairs
and some early twentieth-century, poorly worked, reconstruction.
The condition of the pavement was remarkable considering its date. It was very dirty (espe-
cially from the covering carpet) with some discolouring of the mortar. Although there are parts
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